Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The HP Omni 10 which is powered with a quad-core processor is from Intel’s very well known Bay Trail series, a 1.46GHz Intel Atom Z3770 processor which has a chipset that works with 2 GB of DDR3L RAM. It may seem like it is another moderate Windows 8.1 tablet, but in looking more closely, this tablet has more to offer. This device offers a solid and lightning-fast performance with extra-ordinary ease that one may find its simplicity appealing.

Equipped with an excellent resolution of 1920 x 1200, this tablet displays impressively detailed graphics. In addition to that, this display is built with Gorilla Glass 3 that warrants improved durability and scratch protection which is up to three times more damage resistant compared to Gorilla Glass 2. As this tablet is run with Windows environment, side-by-side app viewing is done smoothly and easily. It has all the productivity of MS Office 2013 and this makes the HP Omni 10 able to keep up with your wherever, whenever work schedule.

Runs on solid Windows 8.1 (everything works well including flash sites)

Great price with a lot of impressive features

CONS

A bit heavy for its size

2MP front camera has poor resolution and produces grainy images

For those searching for a tablet for the purpose of providing good entertainment, this device is a sure winner. It can be considered as one of the inexpensive professional tablets available in the market.

Years ago I was the ultimate Apple fan girl and wanted little to do with Android devices because they seemed clunky and lacked apps. Time went by, I dumped Apple, and have been firmly in the Android camp for a couple years. Now I find that Apple devices bore me to tears. I’ve tried a couple Blackberry devices, but they failed to impress me and are pretty much ready to have a fork stuck in them at this point anyway. But what about mobile Windows devices? In the past year, I’ve looked at just one Windows device and that was a Nokia Lumia 822 Windows Phone 8. I think it’s high time that I tried a Windows tablet. So when the folks at Verizon Wireless asked me if I was interested in taking the Nokia Lumia 2520 Windows 8.1 RT tablet for a quick test drive, I was happy to accept.Note: Images can be clicked to view a larger size.

Before we go too much further, I need mention that the Nokia Lumia 2520 is a Windows 8.1 RT device. Windows RT is a special version of the Windows operating system that has been designed especially for devices using the ARM chip. It may look almost identical to your main desktop or laptop’s Windows operating system, but it’s not. Windows RT devices will not run legacy applications. That means if you have a favorite app that you have been using on your laptop or desktop with Windows XP, 7 or 8, you won’t be able to install it on the Lumia or any other Windows RT device. There is an online app market called the Windows Store where apps can be downloaded, but this is where Windows RT reminds me of the early days of Android – lack of apps.

The Note Pro is for those who want to mimic a laptop experience, yet don't want to purchase - or carry - a laptop.

Its screen measures 12.2 inches diagonally, giving it about 50 per cent more surface area than Apple's 9.7-inch iPad Air. The Note Pro is also larger than another tablet billed as a laptop replacement, Microsoft's 10.6-inch Surface Pro 2. It's also cheaper; the Surface Pro 2 costs $899.

With the Note Pro's larger screen, television shows and other content come to life. Digital magazines are closer in size to printed editions - though one drawback is that some magazines haven't been designed to be that large, so text looks fuzzy blown up.

The larger screen also means having an on-screen keyboard that comes closer to replicating a physical keyboard. Keys are spaced in a way that I can type with all 10 fingers, the way I learned in high school eons ago. On smaller tablets, I have to inefficiently peck with two fingers.

The Note Pro's on-screen keyboard also has functions that aren't typically found on tablets. For instance, you can use the control key the way you can on laptops, such as CTRL-C to copy text and CTRL-V to paste. And instead of having to toggle between keyboards for letters and symbols, you can access commonly used symbols such as the dollar sign and the asterisk by pressing the corresponding letter key for about one second. Arrows on the lower right side of the keyboard let you move the cursor with more precision than tapping on the touch screen.

That said, it's not the same as a physical keyboard. I still have to look at the keys when I type with 10 fingers, whereas with a regular keyboard, I can navigate by feel while keeping my eyes on the monitor. Samsung does sell a wireless keyboard for $60 and a mouse for $40.

While I'm on prices, I'll add that Verizon has a cellular version of the 32-gigabyte Note Pro for $100 more, or $850. It's $750 with a two-year service contract. Samsung Electronics Co. also sells a variety of cheaper, Wi-Fi-only versions. Unlike the Note Pro, these Tab Pro models don't come with a stylus for writing on the screen. A 12.2-inch version goes for $650, while $500 gets you 10.1 inches and $400 gets you 8.4 inches. The 8.4-inch model doesn't have the laptop-like keyboard I just described.

To further confuse matters, Samsung also has the Galaxy Note 10.1 - 2014 Edition tablet, though it came out in 2013. The $550 tablet does have the stylus, but lacks the new keyboard.

When I wrote about the Note 10.1 in October, I marveled at how tablets were getting some of the functionality typically associated with PCs. In particular, I liked the various multitasking features, though one called Multi-Window limited you to two apps side by side.

The Note Pro lets you run up to four apps that way. That means having Gmail on the upper left portion of the screen, while YouTube video plays on the upper right, a Web browser opens on the lower right and a chat app runs on the lower left. You can change how much space each app takes and save configurations so that you don't have to open the four apps individually each time.

If you want to run more than four, you can activate Pen Window. Apps open in a window that floats over the main app on the screen. You can have several apps open at once, and you can temporarily set an app aside by minimizing it into a small dot.

However, the multitasking capabilities work only with selected apps. That includes more than two dozen of the common ones, but not Netflix or Hulu. I wish I could have streaming video going while I do other stuff on the side.

On Windows 8 tablets, you can run up to four apps side by side, depending on the size of the screen, and there are no restrictions on which ones. You also get access to a wider range of software designed for traditional computers, including Microsoft's Office. The Note Pro is fundamentally an Android tablet with some interface changes and apps to give it a laptop feel.

What's nice about the Note Pro is its compatibility with Android phones and Google services. You'll have to weigh whether that's more important than running Windows software and whether all that is worth the $750 price. And keep in mind that compared with Apple's iOS system, Android still doesn't have as many apps specifically designed for the tablet's screen size. Many tablet apps are simply larger versions of phone apps. The iPad is also cheaper, starting at $499, though the base model comes with half the storage available in the Note Pro's $750 model.

If you've settled on an Android tablet, the Note Pro is a decent device, albeit a pricey one. Although it isn't quite ready to replace your laptop, it gets you closer to that experience than any other Android tablet I've tried.

Samsung officially launched the new Galaxy Tab 4 Android tablets today and it looks like all the past leaks were true.

All 3 tablets will indeed have the same CPU, screen resolution, and cameras, and they will run the same version of Android.

The Tab 4 line will be running Android 4.4.2 KitKat on a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon CPU with either 1GB or 1.5GB RAM. Like last year’s models the tablets have 2 cameras, this time with a 1.2MP front-facing camera and a 3MP rear camera. Screen resolution will be 1280 x 800, and the tablets will of course have both Wifi and Bluetooth.

The 8″ and 10.1″ tablets will be offered in both a Wifi-only and LTE, 2G, and 3G models, depending on the market, and the amount of storage will vary between the tablets.

Just to be clear, Samsung didn’t announce today that the tablets would have a Snapdragon CPU; that came from a leaked benchmark. But given the accuracy of that benchmark in matching up with the announced specs, I am willing to bet that detail is correct.

All in all, these specs represent a minor upgrade for the seven inch model and downgrades for the 8″ and 10″ models. The Tab 4 10.1 has a slightly weaker CPU than the dual-core Intel chip found in its predecessor, and the Tab 4 8.0 has weaker cameras.

Samsung is basically treading water in terms of the Galaxy Tab line, and I would expect that they now see the Galaxy Tabs as a line of budget tablets. If you’re in the market for a quality tablet then this is not good news.

The typical compact tablet has a 7-inch display and has a shiny plastic case. Manufacturers have settled on the form factor as being ideal for consumers who are price conscious and value portability. Apple (AAPL) changed that up a bit with the iPad Mini, sporting a 7.9-inch display and a premium-look metal cladding.

SSNLF is trying to distinguish the Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 from the competition (including its own tablets like the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0) by going bigger, packing in the pixels and taking the appearance up a notch.

So the Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 gets an 8.4-inch display — bigger than all the other compact tablets, but still smaller than full-sized– with a very high resolution of 1600 x 2560 pixels, or 359 ppi. Apple’s iPad Mini with Retina Display, in comparison, has a 326 ppi display, so the Samsung’s should be sharper.

Content looks great, with videos and games in crisp detail and with good color reproduction. Not that the target demographic will be using the Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 for gaming or watching movies — except perhaps between meetings or while waiting in the airport.

There’s still some shiny plastic on display around the bezel, but the back is now a faux leather look, with fake stitching around the edges, reminiscent of an old-school business planner. It looks (and feels) better than it sounds, and if you’re worried about what white faux leather will look like after handling, the Galaxy TabPRO 8.4 review unit I received was white, had been used by many reviewers before me, and still looked good. In a worst-case scenario, it’s plastic –just wipe it off. And there’s a more traditional black faux leather option, too.